Stress and Your Body

It’s no secret that everyone lives with some sort of stress in their day-to-day life. Whether it’s from your home life or your work life – stress can be present.

According to Healthline.com, “stress is a natural physical and mental reaction to both good and bad experiences that can be beneficial to your health and safety.” Sometimes though people can develop chronic stress.

Chronic stress can affect your overall well-being and health. Here are some varying side effects someone may experience from chronic stress.

Central Nervous and Endocrine Systems

Some symptoms of chronic stress that are affected by these systems are anxiety, depression, and irritability. It’s also common to suffer from insomnia as well as headaches.

Eating too much, or not eating enough along with alcohol and drug abuse are symptoms of chronic stress as well.

Respiratory and Cardiovascular Systems

Did you know if you already have preexisting respiratory problems, stress could make it even harder for you to breathe? This can happen because during stressful moments, your body naturally compensates by making your body breathe faster.

Chronic stress has the potential of putting your heart at risk as well because your heart is consistently pumping faster, which can cause symptoms such as high blood pressure and hypertension. These can also put you at a much higher risk of having a stroke or even a heart attack.

Digestive System

Can you believe that chronic stress has the potential of increasing your chances of developing type 2 diabetes?

When you’re stressed out, the body’s natural response is to tense up to protect itself, but if you’re stuck in a state of chronic stress it could hurt your body causing headaches, back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain, and overall body aches.

It’s important to maintain a healthy exercise routine – especially when dealing with stress, because exercise is far more beneficial to your overall health than using painkillers and related medications.

Sexuality and Reproductive System

Stress is already sounding like it causes a ton of problems to the point where your body just doesn’t function properly anymore. There are so many other parts stress can affect though – including men and women’s overall libido.

Men have the potential to produce more testosterone during stressful times, but chronic stress can cause a man’s testosterone level to drop dramatically which can cause erectile dysfunction and affect sperm production. Not only that, but certain things are more prone to getting an infection such as: the urethra, prostate, as well as the testes.

Women who are affected by stress can see the side effects within their menstrual cycle. They can often experience irregular cycle symptoms such as heavier and more painful periods, or even no periods at all. Women who have already gone through menopause may experience even harsher side effects if they’re struck with chronic stress.

Immune System

Finally, we’ve come to the end… and yet this is one of the most important systems to cover when it comes to stress because if your immune system is down or weak in general it could cause a lot more complications.

If your body is just going through regular stress though, it can actually benefit you! When your body is stressed it can help you heal your wounds as well as ward off infections.

Like anything though, if your body is exposed to chronic stress, it will affect you somehow. When you’re under a lot of stress your body is more susceptible to viral illnesses, it can increase the time it takes to recover, and it can increase your chances of getting other diseases or infections.

As you can see, stress is not something to take lightly because it can always transform into chronic stress. Be sure to always take care of not only your physical health, but your mental health as well because as you can see above, your mental well-being can affect your physical well-being.